The Wind
O, Wind! what saw you in the South,In lilied meadows fair and far?I saw a lover kiss his lassNew-won beneath the evening star.
O, wind! what saw you in the WestOf passing sweet that wooed your stay?I saw a mother kneeling byThe cradle where her first-born lay.
O, wind! what saw you in the NorthThat you shall dream of evermore?I saw a maiden keeping trystUpon a gray and haunted shore.
O, wind! what saw you in the EastThat still of ancient dole you croon?I saw a wan wreck on the wavesAnd a dead face beneath the moon.
Words in this poem
- lilied a.
- Covered with, or having many, lilies.
- lass n.
- A youth woman; a girl; a sweetheart. [OE. lasse; prob. of Celtic origin; cf. W. llodes girl, fem. of llawd lad. (Lad a youth.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
- tryst v. i.
- To mutually agree to meet at a certain place.
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- croon v. i.
- To make a continuous hollow moan, as cattle do when in pain.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Wind is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, The Wind, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/the-wind.html, id L29386.
Form and metre
The Wind is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A south · farA · lass · starA
- 2 -A-A west · stayA · by · layA
- 3 -A-A north · evermoreA · tryst · shoreA
- 4 -A-A east · croonA · waves · moonA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O, Wind! what saw you in the South, | 8 | ········ |
| In lilied meadows fair and far? | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| I saw a lover kiss his lass | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| New-won beneath the evening star. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| O, wind! what saw you in the West | 8 | ········ |
| Of passing sweet that wooed your stay? | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I saw a mother kneeling by | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The cradle where her first-born lay. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| O, wind! what saw you in the North | 8 | ········ |
| That you shall dream of evermore? | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I saw a maiden keeping tryst | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Upon a gray and haunted shore. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| O, wind! what saw you in the East | 8 | ········ |
| That still of ancient dole you croon? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I saw a wan wreck on the waves | 8 | ········ |
| And a dead face beneath the moon. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.